Being paranoid in this age of viruses and ransomware is a good idea, which is why this page exists. The good news is that none of Timelapse’s many users have reported any security or privacy problems to me. Still, here are some things that may lessen your concerns if you are worried about security or privacy (although the usual no guarantees caveat applies).

Positives

1. Timelapse executables downloaded from this web site are:
   • located on my (reasonably secure https) University of Calgary web site;
   • based on source code that only I wrote and have access to;
   • personally compiled on my own reasonably secure password-protected machine. located behind a firewall;
   • zipped / installation files created by me and placed on the web site by me;
   • not reliant on any external mirrors.
2. When run:
   • Timelapse does not do anything requiring elevated security, i.e., it runs under the standard user level.
   • It creates, reads and writes files only in a folder (and its sub-folders) as directed by the user, i.e., to save tagged image into an SQL database file, to create backup files in a sub-folder, to create a thumbnail cache of images to increase image display performance (pending), etc. No files are written outside that folder or its subfolders, and no images or data is shared.
   • It stores benign user settings in the Windows registry so it can restore settings when the user opens timelapse again (e.g., window location).
   • It only attempts one external network connection (aside from web page links). Timelapse reads a file on my website to see if a software update is available. If so, it informs the user via a dialog box. However, downloading any updates is a completely manual process done at the user’s discretion after visiting the web site’s download page.
   • Timelapse does not request, store or look up any personal information about the user, domain, organization etc.